Here
he remained a week shut up in a house, till one night a man with
a white beard, whom he understood to be a "medicine-man", came
and inspected him, after which he was led off and taken through
the thorn forest to the confines of the wilderness, and given
food and this sword (at least so he said), and turned loose.'
'Well,' said Sir Henry, who had been listening with breathless
interest, 'and what did he do then?'
'Oh! he seems, according to his account, to have gone through
sufferings and hardships innumerable, and to have lived for weeks
on roots and berries, and such things as he could catch and kill.
But somehow he did live, and at last by slow degrees made his
way south and reached this place. What the details of his journey
were I never learnt, for I told him to return on the morrow,
bidding one of my headmen look after him for the night. The
headman took him away, but the poor man had the itch so badly
that the headman's wife would not have him in the hut for fear
of catching it, so he was given a blanket and told to sleep outside.
As it happened, we had a lion hanging about here just then,
and most unhappily he winded this unfortunate wanderer, and,
springing on him, bit his head almost off without the people
in the hut knowing anything about it, and there was an end of
him and his story about the white people; and whether or no there
is any truth in it is more than I can tell you.
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